Letters to the editor

Not-so-smart perception
Researchers studying associations between IQ and selected visual tasks (“Less is more for smart perception,” SN: 6/29/13, p. 18) report that tracking small moving foreground objects, a task at which high-IQ subjects excelled, is often more important than detecting large-object motion or attending to background activity. They suggest that for driving or walking in busy areas, high-IQers have an advantage over people with lower IQs, who are better at monitoring large objects. I will have to take their word for it, but I can’t quite get out of my mind an image of all those geniuses, deftly swatting away mosquitoes and flies while being run over by trucks and trains whose approach in the background they didn’t notice.Holly J. Massey, Livermore, Calif.

This article is available only to subscribing members. Join the Society today or Log in.